Out in the hospice courtyard, the midday wind had dropped behind the high limestone shoulder of the ridge. That left a pocket of bright, cold winter sunshine along the south wall where the twelve freed testers were taking their afternoon air. It was the first time since the final disconnection of the summit seven at the Hollow Summit that all twelve of them were sitting outdoors together without litters.
Senn sat on the wide cedar log near the wellhead with his leather-and-ash chest brace laced over his wool vest. He watched his seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son build a tiny corral out of pine cones in the gravel at his boots. Beside him sat Maren and Tov, their wrists wrapped in light linen strips over their healing needle scabs. Further down the bench sat Vey, Kori, Dren, Sela, Borin, Neth, and Yul. He passed a kettle of warm ginger tea from hand to hand. Meanwhile, Pera and Halin stood near the clinic porch.
When Seyun walked out to the wellhead carrying Mina’s open medicine ledger in one hand and the thirty-pound second sack of stone spring ash under his other arm, the quiet conversation along the benches paused.
In the sheltered lee of the hospice courtyard wall, all twelve of the inward-channel testers who had survived the Hollow Summit pillar and the northern chamber sat on wool-draped benches and cedar logs in the pale afternoon sun: Pera and Halin near the clinic door. Senn with his two young children leaning…
